gather from Charlotte and Charles. But I have more important things to worry about than Vincent and his obsessions. Lucien, the numa leader, and his crew have been setting off mini catastrophes all over town. Over the last few months, the numa have gotten more and more active, and JB and Vincent are wondering what the numa chief has up his sleeve.
We saved a potential suicide from him a couple of weeks ago. She was fourteen and pregnant, and Lucien had convinced her that life wasn’t worth living. As usual, he and his crew tagged along to see the deed done. To revel in their repulsive glee at having tricked yet another human to her doom.
I was volant, walking with Charlotte and Charles, and foresaw what would happen. I flew to fetch Vincent and Ambrose as reinforcements just as Charlotte and Charles began fighting Lucien’s henchmen. Vincent didn’t get to the girl in time to touch her—to pass her his calm—but dove into the river right after she jumped and saved her. Charlotte and Charles killed two numa under the bridge, but Lucien and another got away while Ambrose was fending off some curious passersby.
After that incident, Lucien seems to lay low. A couple of weeks pass without our catching sight of him or his men. Although all I want to do is escape to my studio and paint, I find myself spending most of my free time babysitting Charles, who is once again in one of his existential crises: Why are we here? Why couldn’t he have just died and stayed dead? Why is he forced to live out this existence that he never chose? Sad Girl is completely off my radar.
So I am unprepared when Vince and I pass the café one morning and see her sitting at her usual table. “I could use a little caffeine fix about now, how ’bout you?” Vincent says, eyes glued to her face.
It’s useless to resist. I follow him onto the terrace, where he takes a table a few rows away from hers on an aisle she will have to pass when she leaves. I spend the next half hour trying to ignore the fact that Vincent is only half listening to the stories I’m telling. So I amp up the intrigue and give him a story I’m sure he’s never heard.
It was about 1910 and Juan Gris and I were leaving the Bateau-Lavoir, that hideous wooden building where we all lived and worked. If possible, it felt even colder inside the building than out. We were so frozen that even with gloves on we couldn’t manage to paint, so our plan was to go sit in a warm café until our fingers unstuck, and then get back to work. Between us, we had enough cash for two coffees, and I guess we were looking pretty rough—but who wasn’t in those days?
Anyway, on our way back to the Bateau, Juan and I got nabbed by the police. Handcuffed and taken in. We knew we were already on the police lists for suspicion of being anarchists and rabble-rousers (which we were not). But this was no regular roundup of indigents. No—these cops confused Juan with one of the robbers of the rue Ordener bank. They were sure it was him, even though we swore up and down we were innocent artists.
“Prove it,” one of the cops said. So I grabbed a pen and paper off the desk and drew a picture of one of the Chat Noir cancan girls. But in my sketch, she had forgotten her costume, all except for the feathered headpiece. With a whoop of raucous laughter and slaps on the back, they let us go.
I’m finishing my story when I realize that Vincent’s not even listening. He leaps to his feet and runs over to the girl’s table. I turn to see Sad Girl standing behind two women who are gathering up a gazillion shopping bags, waiting to get by them to leave. But she forgot her purse—it’s draped over the back of her chair—and that’s what Vincent went to get. He returns with it, and has just sat back down when she gets tired of waiting to leave in that direction, turns, and heads straight toward us, toward the other exit.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks as she passes mere inches away.
We saved a potential suicide from him a couple of weeks ago. She was fourteen and pregnant, and Lucien had convinced her that life wasn’t worth living. As usual, he and his crew tagged along to see the deed done. To revel in their repulsive glee at having tricked yet another human to her doom.
I was volant, walking with Charlotte and Charles, and foresaw what would happen. I flew to fetch Vincent and Ambrose as reinforcements just as Charlotte and Charles began fighting Lucien’s henchmen. Vincent didn’t get to the girl in time to touch her—to pass her his calm—but dove into the river right after she jumped and saved her. Charlotte and Charles killed two numa under the bridge, but Lucien and another got away while Ambrose was fending off some curious passersby.
After that incident, Lucien seems to lay low. A couple of weeks pass without our catching sight of him or his men. Although all I want to do is escape to my studio and paint, I find myself spending most of my free time babysitting Charles, who is once again in one of his existential crises: Why are we here? Why couldn’t he have just died and stayed dead? Why is he forced to live out this existence that he never chose? Sad Girl is completely off my radar.
So I am unprepared when Vince and I pass the café one morning and see her sitting at her usual table. “I could use a little caffeine fix about now, how ’bout you?” Vincent says, eyes glued to her face.
It’s useless to resist. I follow him onto the terrace, where he takes a table a few rows away from hers on an aisle she will have to pass when she leaves. I spend the next half hour trying to ignore the fact that Vincent is only half listening to the stories I’m telling. So I amp up the intrigue and give him a story I’m sure he’s never heard.
It was about 1910 and Juan Gris and I were leaving the Bateau-Lavoir, that hideous wooden building where we all lived and worked. If possible, it felt even colder inside the building than out. We were so frozen that even with gloves on we couldn’t manage to paint, so our plan was to go sit in a warm café until our fingers unstuck, and then get back to work. Between us, we had enough cash for two coffees, and I guess we were looking pretty rough—but who wasn’t in those days?
Anyway, on our way back to the Bateau, Juan and I got nabbed by the police. Handcuffed and taken in. We knew we were already on the police lists for suspicion of being anarchists and rabble-rousers (which we were not). But this was no regular roundup of indigents. No—these cops confused Juan with one of the robbers of the rue Ordener bank. They were sure it was him, even though we swore up and down we were innocent artists.
“Prove it,” one of the cops said. So I grabbed a pen and paper off the desk and drew a picture of one of the Chat Noir cancan girls. But in my sketch, she had forgotten her costume, all except for the feathered headpiece. With a whoop of raucous laughter and slaps on the back, they let us go.
I’m finishing my story when I realize that Vincent’s not even listening. He leaps to his feet and runs over to the girl’s table. I turn to see Sad Girl standing behind two women who are gathering up a gazillion shopping bags, waiting to get by them to leave. But she forgot her purse—it’s draped over the back of her chair—and that’s what Vincent went to get. He returns with it, and has just sat back down when she gets tired of waiting to leave in that direction, turns, and heads straight toward us, toward the other exit.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asks as she passes mere inches away.
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